David Kelly

Been told they won't sell him to a rival apparently. How times have changed.

Local press saying we might sign a midfielder as well as Townsend and that a third deal isn't out of the question as long as Tiote's deal goes through. Of course they don't seem to have any idea of who these players might be so most likely we'll sign no one at all.

Some daft cunt will probably be shouting shoot at him too.

Tiote gone to China at last. In Landmark as we speak getting himself ready.

That he was confident it could be done. Keep up man.

Aye, I didn't say I was confident.

Rafa seems confident we can get this done. Think pissing him off would be the biggest concern if we didn't.

No one that I'd be worried about having an attacking flank against.

One of the mates I went with gets more pissed than anyone I know (mid 30's and nearly always pisses the bed when he's drunk) and even wouldn't consider getting pissed going to the cinema.

Attack is the best form of defence for me. Force the opposition back and they can't attack you. Plus, in this division who's half decent?

Rafa is a much better manager than Pardew. That needs to be stressed when making such comparisons. And in the interests of fairness, I would say Ritchie has a much better attitude than Ben Arfa.

I did think that it was the most obvious film for this to happen in mind. More surprised it was women and not blokes.

I blame pulp fiction.

It's starting to look like £20m for a player like McCarthy isn't that overpriced. A year or two ago you wouldn't have considered more than £10m but that Wilchut is supposedly going from Wigan to Norwich for £7m and they're talking £15m for Hogan. If anything, Townsend is under priced by virtue of the release clause we had on him and that we're the only team he's played regularly for. With regards to Ritchie on the left or as a number 10 (I'm not discounting either), has he ever regularly or successfully played in those positions? I'd guess he would have played left wing at some point (being a left footed winger) but for us and Bournemouth at least he's been playing on the right.

How would we actually fit Townsend into the team if we sign him? Isn't part of his problem at Palace that he doesn't want to play on the left? Wouldn't that give us the same problem with Ritchie as he always seems to prefer to be on the right. I'm certainly much more in favour of signing Townsend than I was at this point last year as I saw what he was capable of for us. But for all his quality, it does strike me that we're not really solving our bigger problems which to me is a lack of options if Shelvey is unavailable and a real attacking threat down the left.

Oviedo has looked ok when I've seen him play but he's a downgrade on PVA and his fitness record has been poor (I might be being a bit unfair there as I think he had a bad injury). Gibson is an average player with an absolutely horrendous fitness record. I'd be hard pushed to see how he really improves their team but I suppose he's another body in for the squad. Dunno how much they've cost but it doesn't seem to me that they've improved their position by selling PVA and bringing these two.

I always liked him but his form in the last or so (in which he played) was way down on what it had been in the past imo. That may well have been due to the absolute cluster fuck of defence that was in front of him because they would have certainly dented his confidence. But Darlow has barely put a foot wrong since he came into the team properly and I think he's looked the best keeper I've ever seen us have in coming for balls into the box.

His form prior to his injury certainly wasn't better than Darlow's has been.

The closer you are to the pitch the more you realise how fast footballers are. Clark generally looked like he was moving at the speed of a constipated tortoise but I remember seeing in a cup game when I got a seat only a couple of rows from the pitch. You could see that miles faster than anyone I'd ever played football with in my life.

Mental or physical age?

I went to see Trainspotting 2 on Friday. Unfortunately it was spoilt by two mortal middle aged slappers who kept going out for more drinks and tabs and forgetting where they were sitting and shouting at each other accross the theatre. Then to my eternal joy they parked up in a couple of empty seats just in front of me absolutely stinking of booze, tried to phone their other mate who they'd lost and chatted through the remaining half hour of the film (at one point of them tried to explain the the plot of the first film to the other) completely oblivious to a number of people telling them to shut the fuck up. I'm absolutely astonished that people go to the cinema and get in such a state (or go anywhere and in the state these hags got) or that they can have such a lack of awareness of what is going on around them. I do think the odeon staff should have done something about them (I'm pretty sure people went out and complained) and certainly shouldn't have kept serving drinks to anyone in that state, but when all the staff are just young kids they're not likely to stand up to people like this. I did still enjoy the film and it's definitely better than a feared it would end up being. The soundtrack while still good, isn't a patch on the original though where it's almost another character in it's own right. I think more than anything else stopped it from really reaching the heights of the original.

What a twat. One of the greats. RIP

Coloccini was a Argentine international who'd been at big clubs, Enrique had actually started to come into his own in the second half of the season before and Carroll was just a young kid. They might have some kids who may be able to come through that we don't know about but I don't see much in their first team that you think might come good.

I suppose Rodwell could come good in the second tier but Anichibie's only run of form in his carreer has been those 3 goals in 2 games for them this season. I'd not expect much from him in any division. The other players you mentioned would almost certainly fuck off. That would leave them with the well past their best players, Borini (went back under duress so would most likely fuck off too), Kahzi (would fuck off too), Kirchoff (bye bye) Love, McNair, Jones, Gooch, the ginger cunt and Cattermole. I can't see much in that lot that would suggest getting near the play offs let alone top two.

Keane, has scored 83 in 125 in America. You could say he'd found his form over there. Of course you could also say the standard is dog shit over there! I think Jagielka would be an improvement for them like but I think losing PVA will weaken them at lefback and the others will do next to nothing so I don't think they'll be putting themselves in any better a position. They needed to either sell someone like Kahzi who isn't playing much or get mega money from someone. And they really don't have that someone.